


Aliier/Aliance

by narceus



Series: Crown and Comfort [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Alternate Universe - Royalty, F/M, Marriage of Convenience
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-03
Updated: 2013-08-03
Packaged: 2017-12-22 07:43:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/910657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/narceus/pseuds/narceus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>c1300, Old French <i>aliance</i>: "alliance, bond, marriage, union"</p><p>Stems from Old French <i>aliier</i>, "combine, unite", from Latin <i>alligare</i> "bind to"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aliier/Aliance

**Author's Note:**

> Loosely inspired by [this gifset](http://c-is-for-circinate.tumblr.com/post/44492802546/theplanetmidnight-teen-wolf-meme-three-otps) and the tags on it, which gave me Scydia feels I never knew I could have.
> 
> Put this up [on my tumblr](http://c-is-for-circinate.tumblr.com/post/44524950412/ooops-i-wrote-a-thing) forever ago, but since I seem to have written a sequel, it seemed like time to get it up here. (Sequel, which is mostly the lengthy tale of Scott and Lydia being underestimated BAMFs and fucking shit up, should be posted shortly.)

Her Majesty Queen Lydia of the country of North Cali is very very good at being seen _not to care_.

She doesn’t care that her parents, the queen and king before her, refused to speak to each other for years and let the country fall into ruin between them before finally giving up and retiring to opposite ends of the kingdom. She doesn’t care that General Hale turned traitor against the crown and against her, or that his last known act was the heinous assassination of Princess Kate of Argent, or that he nearly brought North Cali to the brink of war, or that he hasn’t been seen since. Lydia doesn’t care that the current General Hale inherited his position on a technicality, and if she cared enough to realize that he’s almost completely incompetent, well, she wouldn’t actually care about that, either. She certainly doesn’t care about the freak troll accident that killed Sir Jackson, more than a year ago. She’s a queen. She doesn’t have to care about anything.

After all, if she did care--if Lydia still had nightmares about how Peter Hale’s spells turned her into a puppet on her own throne, if she still cried at night over Jackson, every once in a while--well, what kind of queen would that make her? Not a very impressive one, that’s for sure. And there’s nobody in the kingdom that could say Lydia isn’t _impressive_.

Lydia takes her Grand Tour of the kingdom’s outer provinces precisely because she doesn’t care. Lydia’s the sort of queen who wants things done her way, promptly and precisely, while her adoring public watches her splendour. A grand tour like this is clearly the sort of thing she’d foist off on the public in spite of all the petty infighting, border incursions, and public health crises the people have to deal with. It’s certainly not something she’d do _because_ of all that.

Of course not. She’s probably trying to see if she can pick up a few new dresses in exotic styles along the way. That seems like the Queen’s sort of thing.

+++

The really odd thing about the tiny border province of Beacon Hills is that North Cali shouldn’t, by all rights, still _have_ a tiny border province of Beacon Hills.

It’s a nothing little splotch of hilly land on the northernmost edge of North Cali, sandwiched between the Principality of Argent on one side, and the boundless magical barbarian wilderness of Canada on the other. According to Lydia’s notes, it hasn’t even had a proper feudal lord in two generations. They make a halfhearted attempt at paying their taxes every year at best, and in return Peter doesn’t appear to have sent troops to help them fend off border raiders even once, but when the caravan train for Lydia’s Grand Tour pulls up to the province’s main keep, the keep is still there. It’s even flying the North Cali flag. Lydia can work with that.

Provinces _are_ allowed to govern themselves or establish their own leaders, if the reigning king or queen doesn’t step in to appoint a feudal lord themselves, and Lydia’s parents obviously never bothered. None of Lydia’s informants had managed to turn up any kind of official election results from the wheat and cattle farmers up here, but a few names had been waved about.

At the keep, Lydia takes it upon herself, in a perfectly tailored and spotlessly clean traveling dress and a fur-trimmed cloak that really _should_ be enough to tell any mere commoner that they stand in the presence of nobility, to tap one of the bemused-looking locals on the shoulder while her own servants busy themselves with colonizing the castle.

“Excuse me,” Lydia asks politely. “Can you tell me who’s actually been living here?”

“Um, nobody?” the man asks, tilting his head at her like he thinks it might be a trick question. “We pretty much just use the keep for storing whatever weapons we can get our hands on, and hiding cows and babies when the Canadians make it over the border. It’s kind of drafty.”

“Oh, really?” Lydia asks. “Do you know who’s in charge here, then?”

“In charge?” the man asks blankly. “You do know you’re in Beacon Hills, right? We farm cows. We don’t actually need a whole lot of government. Do you want the guy who does the crossbow weddings and quickie divorces, or the guy who drags the town drunk down to our one jail cell to make him sleep it off every other week? Because the second one’s my dad, but the town drunk’s not due to go disturbing the peace again until next week, so he’s off on a fishing trip for the next couple of days.”

Charming. “Which of them gives the orders when the Canadians make it over the border?” Lydia asks, with crystals of ice sparkling in her smile.

“No, that’s usually Scott’s thing, but he’s not going to know where they keep the candlesticks and spare bedsheets,” the man says. He glances over Lydia’s left shoulder, then raises an arm to wave. “Hey! Scott! Who’s going to know where the royal party can set up house? Would your mom?”

Lydia turns her head slightly. There’s a messy-haired local man, no older than her, helping some of her groomsmen unload trunks from the enormous train of carriages this tour has required. He looks up at his friend’s shout. He’s not wearing a shirt.

Scott cups his hands around his mouth and hollers back, “Mrs. Stevenson went into labor last night, Mom’s down at the other end of the valley. Didn’t Greenburg do inventory last winter for fun?”

“Thank you, that will be quite enough,” Lydia says. She turns smartly on the toe of her elegantly beaded yet sturdily practical riding boot, and glides with all her queenly grace back to Sir Danny, who’s waiting near her palfrey with his permanent expression of long-suffering patience on his face.

“That one has dinner with us tonight,” she tells Danny, nodding at Scott.

+++

When they tell the court about the overwhelming romance of their first meeting, Scott’s perfect respectful country courtesy, how struck he was by Lydia’s regal demeanor and incomparable beauty, etc etc etc, Lydia skips right to the feast. She slides right over the part where Scott spends two and a half hours looking anywhere on earth besides her bust line, and also the bit where he spills gravy all over his own shirt, and especially the part where Scott clearly doesn’t have the least clue as to why he’s actually been invited to dine with the Queen of North Cali in the first place. 

Rustic and wholesome country-bred war heroes make perfectly acceptable trophy husbands. Idiots don’t. Scott’s not an idiot, and Lydia won’t have him coming off that way.

He’s not much of a trophy husband either, but that much she’s perfectly happy to keep secret, for now.

+++

Lydia mostly just wants him as an ally at first. Lydia’s very good at learning to read her allies.

Scott McCall is a completely unremarkable farmboy who just so happens to have a knack for getting other people to follow his lead. All right, fine. Lydia’s surrounded by charming people who can manipulate others into following their lead. Scott’s different because he does it entirely without artifice. Scott’s different because he doesn’t use his charisma to get people to do things for him, but to get people to work together to do things for themselves.

Scott’s different, most importantly of all, because what he does _works_.

The world is full of people with charisma and people with good intentions, and the history books and graveyards are packed full of martyred heroes who had both. Scott McCall picked up a pitchfork and gathered his neighbors to stand against Canadian invaders, and beyond all reason, they actually survived. _That’s_ unusual. That’s special. The interpersonal abilities to gather a following, basic decency in terms of methods and goals, _and_ enough skill to actually see those goals come to pass? That’s a trifecta Lydia hasn’t seen often in her life. Not often at all.

“Half of the plans are always Stiles’s idea,” Scott admits to her, somewhere out in the middle of an endless string of hills that all look the same. Lydia had demanded that Scott give her a tour of his province. Scott had looked a little wide-eyed and not tried to object. “At least. Maybe more. I’m not always the best guy for strategy.”

“You sell yourself short,” Lydia says.

She knows Stiles, by now, although he’s still cringing in embarrassment at the memory of their first meeting every time Lydia happens to walk past him. She knows his kind. He’s clever, and more skillful than Scott, but he’s not quite as honest and he’s not quite as full of charm. Scott’s sheer genuine honesty _is_ half his charm. Lydia is by now entirely certain that Scott knows the faces, if not the names, of every stripling boy and stubborn farmer’s wife who ever lifted a finger in defense of Beacon Hills, and people can tell. People _trust_ him.

People like Stiles are meant to sit close to generals and kings, and plot and conspire and do all the vicious things that great leaders can’t be seen to do themselves. Lydia knows the type, and understands it. Peter had pretended to be that sort of advisor, once. Ever since he left, Lydia’s been doing that part of the job all on her own, quietly, hoping nobody would catch on, and it’s not going to work forever. Stiles is the sort of person who keeps a great leader standing.

Scott is the sort of person who leads.

“Even if all of the ideas were his,” Lydia says, “you’re smart enough to know which ones to use and which ones not to.”

It’s not flattery. They’ve shown her some of their maps, told her stories, although Lydia had to pick apart the typical male posturing for a beautiful woman. There were some truly terrible plans enacted once or twice over the past few years, but Scott’s readily owned up to the ones that were his idea, and for the most part they’ve done really very well. Lydia’s own royal general probably couldn’t boast Scott’s success rate. Oh, right. Lydia’s royal general has so little experience he can barely boast a list of battles at all. Maybe if he dies before he gets around to having children, she can get around the law making it a hereditary position. It could happen.

“I’m just trying to keep everybody safe,” Scott says, and Lydia nods. She knees her horse along behind his, and eyes the broadness of his shoulders and the shape of his uneven jaw, and ponders her options.

+++

Scott’s been in love once before. It didn’t work out.

“Good, then we have that in common,” Lydia says briskly. Scott still can’t quite get over the fact that the _Queen of North Cali_ wants him to call her by name. If he spends enough time boggling over that, it distracts him from actually having a stroke over the fact that the Queen of North Cali wants him to _marry her_.

“You’re young,” Lydia says. “You’re not from the capitol, and you’re not hereditary nobility even though there’s a series of homesteading and defense laws that give you an excellent claim to title as Lord of Beacon Hills, if I say so, which I do. It means you’re not likely to try to overthrow me. It also means the snakes and parasites of the court will all assume I’m marrying someone I intend to control, so they’ll underestimate you long enough for you to get some actual work done. You’ve done good things here, now come do them for me.”

“Are you offering me a job?” Scott asks. “I don’t think that’s how marriage is supposed to work.”

“It is for people like me,” Lydia says. “If I don’t find myself a politically suitable match, then sooner or later the council steps in. I’m not going to let that happen. You’re what I want, Scott.” Her fingertip presses warm against his breastbone, and how does Lydia _keep finding him_ in situations where he’s not going to be wearing a shirt? She turned up down at the well on the edge of his mom’s farm, today.

“Um,” Scott says. She’s the _Queen_. And okay, Beacon Hills hasn’t had all that much to do with the rest of North Cali in a couple of decades, but she’s still _royalty_. And gorgeous. And touching his bare skin, which no girl has done since Allison.

“Don’t you like me?” Lydia asks, looking up at Scott from just a little too close. “I like you. I wouldn’t be asking this if I didn’t. It doesn’t have to be about true love. A good marriage can just mean being able to work together for the good of the people. I think we could be great together.”

His resolve is weakening. It has been, for the past week or two. It doesn’t help that Stiles, after that disaster of a first impression, has basically decided that Lydia is the most beautiful and perfect woman in the world and hasn’t stopped talking her up ever since. Lydia keeps saying that he could do more for Beacon Hills from the capitol, and for the whole rest of the country too. Lydia keeps saying a lot of things.

“I don’t know if I can marry someone I don’t love,” Scott says. “And I don’t think I can...”

“This girl, the one you’re still in love with,” Lydia says. “Are you waiting for her, or is she never coming back?”

Scott swallows. He doesn’t like to think about Allison much, these days. “She can’t,” he says, and Lydia nods.

“Well, then,” she says. “Sooner or later you’re going to have to marry someone. Isn’t it better to have a wife who doesn’t expect you to be in love with her if you can’t be? You’re not going to break _my_ heart.”

There are some girls around the nearest village, or who come up to the keep when the raids are on, and they smile at Scott so sweetly that he can’t even bring himself to make eye contact. Lydia seems like she’s only sweet when she wants something. She’s honest, though. She seems honest.

“Maybe,” Scott says, because he has to talk to Stiles and his mom one more time before he says _yes_. Lydia nods and smiles, gentle but pleased, like she knows she’s won.

If they’re going to be getting married, then maybe Scott shouldn’t be thinking about it like a battle any more.

+++

The Royal Grand Tour stays for five and a half weeks in the province of Beacon Hills, more than long enough to eat their way through half a herd of local cattle and see every last inch of the province’s titular hills. It skips its scheduled stop in Seacouver altogether and heads right back down through Central Valley towards the capitol, pausing only half as long in the villages and towns it passes as Lydia originally meant to. Of course the Queen does things like that. She’s the Queen.

Queen Lydia rules her kingdom with an iron fist in a delicate silk glove, according to her every wish or whim, everybody knows that. She doesn’t care about anyone or anything besides herself and her own power, so why should anybody be surprised that her choice of husband seems custom-crafted to sit on a throne and gaze at her in dull, attractive adoration for the rest of his life? It’s exactly the sort of thing they all should have expected Queen Lydia to pull. At least this Lord Scott seems more or less inoffensive. He’s not the type to make ridiculous demands or abuse the servants just because he’s bored. He won’t try to pull rank with his power.

No, the court nobility reassure themselves, after Lord Scott of Beacon Hills has been presented to them all, hooked on the Queen’s arm and blinking like a lost calf at the decorations of the palace Great Hall. Their new king-to-be won’t do anything with his new role at all.

+++

Scott spends his first month in the capitol ‘amusing himself’ by ‘observing’ how General Hale deals with his troops. General Hale obviously has no idea what to do with him, but it takes Scott about a week, and a couple of conversations with Lydia and Stiles, to be really sure that General Hale has no clue what to do with _anything_.

General Hale’s first name is Derek, he’s not even thirty yet, and he’s only general because he’s literally the only Hale still alive and not wanted for high treason against the state. When Scott shows up and starts talking a little bit about what they’d tried to do up in Beacon Hills, Derek stares at him with this weirdly blank expression and what Scott’s pretty sure is _total desperation_ in his eyes.

“This army could use you, Scott,” Derek says, which Scott had totally doubted until he saw some of Derek’s training plans. This army could use all the help it can get. “You’re a military man, a leader. We’re the same that way.”

Okay, Scott admits that he and Derek might have a little in common, with the whole _accidentally ended up in charge of military forces way too young to know what they’re doing_ thing. It could be the basis for a pretty good friendship. Scott _needs_ friends around the capitol besides Stiles, who’s as out of place here as he is, and Lydia, who Scott isn’t entirely sure actually counts as a _friend_. If only he didn’t think that all of Derek’s plans are _completely terrible_.

Lydia’s already brainstorming ways to undermine General Hale’s authority and put Scott in charge of basically the entire army once he’s king. There’s probably no chance of making a real friend there.

+++

The fuck of it all is, Lydia does, in fact, actually _like_ Scott. She hasn’t thought about the possibility of actually _liking_ her spouse since...before Jackson died. She’d loved him, right up until the end, part of her still loves him, but they’d stopped actually _liking_ each other a long time before that. It’s probably why they’d never actually gotten around to the wedding part.

Scott is a little bit impossible not to like. His smile is infectious, he genuinely means everything he says, and he brings her flowers. He’s not in love with her, not one bit, but whenever he rides out with General Hale or just on his own, he always comes back with ragged bouquets of wildflowers. Never mind that Lydia is the Queen and could have all the perfectly-styled blossoms she could want. Scott is her fiance, and he thinks that means he has to do little things like that, and Lydia can’t help but send a maid for a vase every single time.

They get married three months after Scott comes to the capitol, in December, with Stiles standing in as best man and Scott’s mother in the back of the church, in a new dress that Lydia’s best maids finished sewing just this morning. Melissa’s a good woman, better than Lydia’s parents, but she doesn’t belong in the capitol. Scott doesn’t really belong in the capitol, if it comes to that, but he’s the King now. He’ll adjust. The capitol will learn to adjust to him.

It’s only been three months, but Lydia is already very nearly sure that Scott knows the faces, if not the names, of every single one of the nobles and their children, the guardsmen, the soldiers on detachment to the capitol, and even the downstairs servants who the royalty is never supposed to see. Most of the nobles think that Scott is going to be ineffective and unproblematic because he wastes his time on things like helping the royal physician prepare bandages or treat a little girl’s beloved cat.

Lydia sees the way the nobles look at Scott, but she also sees the way Deaton, and the little girl, and the girl’s parents, and every other guard and soldier and servant in the palace looks at him. She made the right choice. Scott may not be meant for politics, but he was always meant to be King.

+++

Neither one of them has had sex in longer than they care to remember. Neither one of them is expecting it to be quite so _hot_.

They wait until the wedding night, because tradition, and why not. They’ve kissed, chastely, on the cheek, or lip to lip without opening their mouths, but this...this is new.

This is three goblets of spiced wine at their own wedding feast making the world around them go just a little fuzzy on the edges, until the only things that seem quite entirely _real_ are the ones they can _touch_ , can _taste_. This is almost five months of knowing each other, of Scott keeping his eyes carefully away from Lydia’s necklines while she had them tailored lower and lower, just to see how far she could tease him and get away with it. This is hot, fervent kisses, grappling with each other, and Scott may be a perfect gentleman but he’s a _warrior_ , too, fierce and forceful in battle, and Lydia may sit like she’s carved from marble and ice but she’s _made_ of fire, grasping and owning and conquering.

Her dress is shredded, not that she cares, Scott’s hands seeking skin and tearing their way under fabric to find it. Lydia rips a hole in his trousers. They also manage to damage two tapestries, knock over a full porcelain tea set, and slam into one of the heavy wooden bedposts hard enough that it lists ominously to one side.

Scott hasn’t been willing to _fight_ her before, not really, too intimidated and too worried about being nice, but he’d forgotten what it feels like, burying himself skin to skin in somebody even fiercer than he is. Lydia growls and bites and kisses with her whole body. It’s a whirlwind. There’s no seeing straight.

They wake up the next morning to sunlight streaming in and the room in shambles, and Scott looks about ready to hide under the covers in embarrassment until Lydia laughs. “We’ll have to do that again sometime,” she says. “Not too often though, or the maids will quit. Week after next?”

(It’s easier fast and harsh and hard and wonderful than it would be slow and soft and sweet. Some things are too intimate for spouses to let each other see. This much, though, this is just right.)


End file.
